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> In lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, Rob Antonishen wrote:
> >
> > P.S. I'd like to see you make a connect 4 robot with 1 RCX, 2 touch sensors, a
> > light sensor and three motors...plus all the technic beams, gears, etc. as
> > needed...
>
>
Rob,
This tiny bit of encouragement (challenge) was all I needed to set out building
a Connect Four robot using only electronics from an RIS.
I came up with the idea before rtl15, and almost converted my second "rnd-7"
robot to use this method of board scanning, but then discovered my co-worker
Greg (who also atteneded rtl15) was working on the design already.
Later (just before rtl15) I found out Chris Phillips was working on the same
design: http://news.lugnet.com/org/ca/rtltoronto/?n=10610
The idea is simple. Just slide a "dipstick" down inside the board, and see how
far it goes.
Both Greg and Chris used two rotation sensors for sensing left/right and up/down
movement.
My design uses a touch sensor on the horizontal axis to count lobes attached to
the gear rack:
http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3176
The vertical axis uses a light sensor, and a three color dipstick. The dipstick
has a black brick (1x4) to mark the place to hold the dipstick, while the robot
is moving horizontally.
When the stick is lowered into the board, it has grey & white blocks to identify
odd and even chips. After a preset length of time (when the stick stops
dropping), the light sensor is checked to determine if the number of chips in
the column is odd or even, and that value is compaired to data in memory, to
determine if the number of chips has changed.
To drop a chip, the stick is raised just beyond the black brick, and the chip
will fall from the EOAT.
The chips are loaded into the EOAT by a lever, when the EOAT returns home.
It took me about two weeks to build this robot, and modify my existing code to
make it work. It still needs some fine tuning, but last night I was able to
connect it to Full Contact (which won rtl 15) and let them play a game. Of
course, they're both using the same logic, so which ever robot goes first will
always win.
I'll try to get a web page, and some pictures, posted later this week, or early
next week.
Steve
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